Pages

AdSense

Thursday, 28 July 2016

We haven't really had much of a summer up until about 2 weeks ago when it just arrived out of nowhere! There have been a few days where it's been a bit cooler which made me happy as the heat was getting to me, especially at night! But for now it seems to be staying (its raining at the moment though) so I've been thinking of planning some summer picnics while it's still warm and I've found a few accessories which I love and are perfect for an afternoon in the park.

1. Checked Wool Blanket

2. Pineapple Food Picks

3. Oversized Cool Bag

4. Large Serving Platter

5. Fiesta Glassware.

6. Plastic Spring Bloom Picnic Jug

7. Fold Out Ice Cream Hanging Decorations

8. Spring Bloom 4 Person Wicker Hamper

I just think all of these bits are so lovely! I need to get out and have some picnics soon so I have an excuse to buy some of these. Have you done anything nice while the weathers been warm?

Monday, 25 July 2016

I never got round to doing a proper favourites in June so I thought instead of missing out completely I would just combine last months with July's, as always there are a few films included but also a mix of TV, food and books!

The Lean Machines, Eat Well, Move Better and Feel Awesome - I actually bought this book for George as one of his presents for our anniversary, I knew he would like it as he's getting into running and exercise a bit more now that he's training for Tough Mudder, there are loads of tips in the book and my favourite part is all the recipes! So many different ones to choose from and they all look really tasty and easy to make.

Love Island - I was hooked on this show last year and this year was exactly the same! It's ended now but every night when it finished I looked forward to watching it the next night, there was so much drama! I just love shows like this that run for weeks and have real people in where anything can happen. My favourites were Terry and Malin but after she went he completely changed so my vote went to Scott and Kady.

Galaxy Duet - I have always loved galaxy but recently we got all three flavours of the galaxy duets and now they are something we get most weekends! They do Cookies and Cream, Caramel and Shortcake and Toffee and Popcorn. The Toffee and Popcorn is my favourite at the minute but I do also really like the Cookies and Cream, its so hard to choose!

Cineworld VIP - We had been wanting to do this for quite a while but at £29 per ticket, even at £19 per ticket with an unlimited card we weren't sure whether it would be worth the money, but after booking to do it around our 5 year anniversary, we now know it is so worth the money and definitely want to do it again! The VIP experience is basically a buffet before the film in a separate section of the cinema, unlimited cinema snacks e.g. hot dogs, nachos and popcorn and drinks and comfy seats which recline and it was so nice to have the foot rest up and properly sit back and relax while watching a film!

The Conjuring 2 - I love a good horror film and most of the time i'm fine with them, but this was actually a lot scarier than I thought it would be. We watched the first film a while ago and as we knew we wanted to see the second one, we re-watched it a few weekends ago aswell as Annabelle, both were scary but the first one has got nothing on this. It was generally a much better story I thought and I think it made it worse to watch because it was based on a true story (Enfield Poltergeist), I think Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson are great in it aswell.

Equals - We saw this advertised ages ago at the cinema but there was no release date and there was hardly any information online about it aswell, I don't know why but I just loved the trailer for it and thought it looked like it would be a really interesting film, luckily after lots of searching we managed to find it online and I wasn't let down. It was just so tense throughout and at the end it took a while for my breathing to go back to normal, I really don't know what it was about it that I enjoyed so much but I really did love it.

What have you been loving this month? Have you seen any of the films I've mentioned?

Wednesday, 20 July 2016

I have always been a fan of Grace Victory and how open and honest she is with her audience, so I was really excited to watch her latest documentary Clean Eating's Dirty Secrets all about the new craze which is Clean Eating and whether it is really that good for us to cut certain foods out of our diet or if some people are just taking it too far.

It's hard not to get fixated on clean eating and crazy diets sometimes when there is now an array of bloggers and vloggers out there who are constantly preaching about clean eating (im not saying everyone who promotes clean eating is trying to force it on us) but a lot do almost bash other diets and certain foods just because they don't eat them, which I think isn't great given a lot of young people look up to them and are likely to be influenced by them. I'm all for a balanced diet, and i'll be honest there are times where I go completely off the rails with food but that's normal, everyone has off days yet these people seem to live the most perfect life and only eat the most expensive perfect food, it isn't realistic. It makes me feel pretty crap and i'm sure i'm not the only one, when I see vloggers filming 'What I Eat In A Day' videos and all they consist of is a smoothie, an apple and a small meal for tea, to me that isn't enough, it isn't the right thing to be showing young people. I watched one a few weeks ago of someone who is completely dedicated to a clean diet and she considered a fruit smoothie (not shop bought) a treat! To me a treat is a takeaway and loads of chocolate!

I was really glad somebody had finally come out and done a program like this highlighting the issues of being so strict and promoting all of these different diets, some that claim to have scientific evidence behind them and then when questioned, refusing to answer the hard questions! That is dangerous, promoting a diet which apparently is backed up by science but on the show been proven to be a load of rubbish. Everyone is also promoting going Gluten Free, that also seems to be a big thing at the moment and why? Drs have said there is no need at all to cut gluten out unless you are intolerant to it and the actual amount that are is a very small number. There is nothing wrong with eating bread, there is nothing wrong with eating white potatoes, its just all about balance. A blogger that Grace met called Eve Simmons said she ended up in hospital due to extreme eating habits, if any carbs were in a recipe she replaced them with something else and over time lost 20% of her body weight and her organs started shutting down. It's scary what can happen if we don't look after our bodies properly and feed it the right things, yes it's good to be healthy, there is nothing wrong with wanting a healthy diet but you have to allow yourself to be lenient about it, there is nothing wrong with a treat every week. I am not going to punish myself for living my life and allowing myself treats and chips and bread, it would be a pretty unhappy life if I gave up all those things, it's just about not going overboard on either side, I like the 80/20 approach, be good 80% of the time and the other 20% eat what you want, that way when it gets the weekend I refuse to feel bad for enjoying some wine and chocolate or whatever I fancy.

It was scary to see the way some people live and how little they eat, during the documentary but I feel it needed to be shown and show people that this clean eating craze isn't necessarily all it's made out to be and how dangerous it can be when it goes too far. If you haven't seen the documentary, it is available on BBC iPlayer. Definitely give it a watch!

Friday, 15 July 2016

I made these ages ago but never got round to posting the recipe, since starting work I've found it hard to find things to take for my lunch and to keep me going throughout the day so I've been looking for some Slimming World friendly snacks that I wont feel guilty for eating. I love Indian snacky things like Pakoras anyway so to find a syn free version made me really happy!

1. Peel the potatoes then chop and boil until soft. When soft, mash with no butter or milk

2. Chop the red onion and leave the frozen vegetables to defrost. When they have defosted, put in a large bowl with the chopped red onion and mashed potato. Mix together then add curry powder and fat free yoghurt

3. When everything is mixed together, spray a tray with frylight and place tablespoon sized dollops on the tray

4. Bake in a 200 degrees pre-heated oven for around 40 minutes then leave to cool

These are so yummy and just the perfect little snack! Perfect to go with a curry too.

Tuesday, 12 July 2016

It was mine and Georges 5 year anniversary on the 6th of July and of course I had to do a blog post about it. I love reading my old blog posts back and I know this will be one of my favourites.

So we started off the day really well with breakfast in bed, opening our cards and presents and looking forward to what we had planned for the few days off we had. We wanted to do something really special so a while ago we found a really nice hotel, booked a fancy room but then when we got there it all went wrong. It wasn't what we expected and so many things just completely ruined it, so without going into detail, we got our money back and tried to think of other things we could do to still make the day special. We didn't want to do our usual date night thing of going to the cinema and going for a meal but thats what we ended up doing and it was really nice, it might be similar to what we usually do but it actually ended up better than staying at the hotel, it wouldn't have been worth the amount of money it was at all and we'd have just been disappointed.

We ended up booking a table at Chiquitos at Centertainment for that evening as we hadn't actually been there together before, no idea why as we both like Mexican food! We had a really nice booth and even though the service was a bit slow it ended up being a really lovely meal and we wanted to go back the next day the food was that good. George had the nachos to start which were honestly amazing and I had the Tortilla Garlic Bread, for mains I had Beef Chilli with Spicy Rice and Nachos and George had Beef Enchiladas. Both were so good! I wish I had taken some pictures but we just wanted to eat it straight away! We didn't get chance to try the desserts as we had already decided to see a film afterwards so we were a bit pushed for time but next time I definitely want to try the Chocolate Orange Cake! As we have Cineworld unlimited cards aswell we got 25% off which took a nice amount of the bill as it would have been quite expensive otherwise. Definitely worth it though. After our meal we went to the cinema to see Absolutely Fabulous, it was actually really good and even though I wouldn't say its the best storyline, it is funny and worth a watch, there is one line which just gets to me and makes me laugh whenever I think about it.

Breakfast in Bed, Some of the presents from George, and Cineworld VIP.

On Friday, a few days after our anniversary we went to Cineworld again but this time it was to see Now You See Me 2 in VIP which was overall such a good experience! The film was really good, I thought it was much better than the first one and I didn't expect that. The VIP experience was well worth the money, we booked it a while ago and it was £19 each for us because of the unlimited cards, the normal price is £29 each but even then I think it is worth that amount, you get a buffet when you first go in, they had a selection of pizzas, pasta, rice, salad and soup, and they also have a frozen yoghurt section and cakes and loads of drinks to choose from. The best bit about it though is the unlimited amount of cinema snacks you can have, you can choose from popcorn, nachos and hot dogs or have all of them which of course we did, you can then choose to go back for more of these during the film and the same with drinks too, the comfy seats were so good too! I can't wait to do it again, I can't recommend it enough.

So even though we had a bit of a disaster with the hotel during the day it did end up been better than we had planned and we did had have a really lovely few days together, I didn't want it to end.